My heart nearly stopped as I came to my feet, my hands ready for violence, only to see Fallon standing beside me. There was a smile of pride on her face so large that it lit the room. She didn't seem to notice how severely she'd startled me, but instead threw her arms around me and planted a warm and wet kiss on my lips.

"I found you!" she said again.

"I ... how?" I asked.

"Just from things you said in your last notes. Was I not a great detective?"

In fact, she had been an admirable detective, and as we sat, I took a careful look around. Over the years, I'd developed a keen sense of knowing when people were watching me. That so-called keen sense hadn't exactly served me well that morning, so I made a point to redouble my effort. I absolutely refused to let my sordid business harm this young woman.

It had been some weeks since I'd arrived in the city, and this was my first time seeing her in person since then. Words can't describe it. This lass was a candle on a dark night.

We chatted about her life for a time. Things had gone well. She'd had several pleasant visits with her mother, reconnected with her closest friends, and had taken the first steps in finding a therapist to work out her deepest problems. I was happy for her.

She even was considering letting her young man back into her life. Apparently, he had informed her that he was going to learn martial arts. I refrained from pointing out that, unless the master at the dojo moonlighted as a transplant surgeon, joining a dojo was a waste of time. All the jujitsu in the world was no substitute for a missing set of balls. I kept my mouth shut.

Seeing her warmed me in ways I cannot express, but I wanted nothing more at that moment than to get as much distance as possible between Fallon and myself. Until this thing was over with my enemy, there was too much danger.

But how to explain that to her? How to hustle her away without hurting her feelings? Yes, go ahead and laugh again. But her feelings meant a great deal to me. So, for the moment, I relented.

She had a beautiful apartment in Hell's Kitchen, an area once squalid but now trendy, and I allowed her to lead me home. Did she hunger for my body? At least as much as I longed for hers. But I rather thought part of the intention of our late morning delight was that she wanted the neighbors to see her bring a woman home and to let them hear our raucous lovemaking.

And I strongly suspected she hoped news of our tryst would make it back to her hapless beau. There was that in her. You may think it ridiculous, but that little seed of wickedness was one of the things I admired about her most. It only highlighted her otherwise deep and profound goodness. For the next two hours, she took my breath away.

Afterward, as I prepared to depart, I was candid with her. I had not always kept the best company, I confessed. And an old acquaintance in the city wished me harm. He was a powerful man, both cruel and ruthless, and until I could sort out the affair, I asked her to be patient and to avoid my company.

To my dismay, that very notion seemed to excite her. But she promised that she'd stay away on the condition that she and I continue our notes and that I give myself over to her desires once my business with my enemy was done. How could I say anything but yes?

I'd taken an enormous risk spending time with Fallon that morning. My enemy's agents were everywhere, and I recently had drunk blood, which sometimes did strange things to my passions. But I left her home feeling happy and well balanced. I still wasn't certain how to deal with my enemy, but as I headed back toward the park at a brisk walk, I felt better able to focus. And I made some decisions.

I didn't want to burn the man's building to the ground. Such a move could too easily blow up in my face, so I would use that only as a last resort. I needed to lure the asshole out into the street. To do that, I needed to convince him that I was vulnerable, which meant letting him know that I was in the city—assuming he didn't know already.

Then something occurred to me. When Whitefarrow last had moved against me in Chicago, he'd used private investigators to track me. It was reasonable that he might try the very same tactic again. And I had the name of a law firm, Brubaker and Calloway, the firm that had pulled the strings in Chicago. They were headquartered in New York City.

If I had to choke the shit out of every lawyer in Manhattan, one of them was going to do my bidding and give me the information that I needed.

***

By early afternoon, I had all the answers that I required and more. Finally, something had gone easily.

I contacted a lawyer friend in California who sometimes did work for me, and asked him a few general questions. He confirmed that many large firms had an inhouse investigatory team, but most farmed out work to private agencies, usually on an exclusive basis. It was rare that law firms worked with more than one private agency, so if I found out who Brubaker and Calloway's firm was, I would find the private dicks who likely were on the lookout for me.

Why waste time? I looked at the firm's website, found nothing of interest, and then spruced myself up and went to the Brubaker and Calloway offices. Might someone recognize me there? Probably not. Lawyers like plausible deniability, and in this case they likely just acted as a middleman between Whitefarrow and his bloodhounds.

Under an old alias, one from several years back, I met with a firm attorney and informed the man that I suspected my husband of five years was offshoring assets in advance of a divorce. I wasn't interested in divorce representation, I told him. I just wanted to know if there was money and how much. I also wanted the goods on my husband's mistress.

The man was happy to help once he heard the amount of money I suspected was at play, and I left sometime later after having given him a retainer and a boatload of fictitious information about my fictional husband and his imaginary trollop.

The only thing I demanded was the name of the investigators that Brubaker and Calloway used in the city. My husband was a man who often used such gumshoes, and I wanted to make sure they weren't men on his payroll.

Templeton and Frisby was the answer I got. They were the only agency that the law firm used.

It was great news, and the only hiccup in the whole operation was when I nearly ran into a man at the Brubaker offices who I knew to be one of Whitefarrow's flunkies. A sudden turn and a few minutes powdering my nose in the ladies' room put me out of the line of fire, and I was on the trail of my sleuths minutes later.

And they were easy to find. It was only a five-block walk to the agency offices near Time Square, so I checked their website as I went. They did a gamut of work, including asset detection, missing persons, and criminal investigation. The company head, F. Miles Frisby, was the sole proprietor, his partner Templeton having passed to his reward several years before.

I had a sudden hankering to tug on Frisby's ear.

I'd made it a point to shift my habits when I got to New York City. In Chicago, I'd stayed at a pair of premium hotels, as I had in Miami.

Creature comforts usually are not something I require, so I moved the other way when I got to NYC, residing in a series of down-market accommodations, places that were so numerous in the city that it seemed unlikely Frisby and his people would have yet searched for me there.

It was very unlikely in that event that any of Frisby's people had seen me, but my last attempt at casing a detective's office hadn't ended to my liking, so I did not intend on any kind of repeat. I approached their office carefully and studied them for a time at a distance.

From half a block away, I analyzed the coming and the going of Templeton and Frisby, taking mental notes on the detectives, the office staff, and the customers. At least, those were the categories with which I imagined I was dealing.

I most of all wanted to get a look at Frisby. People could be vain, and it wasn't uncommon for a website to post a glamour photo of the boss that shaved a little here and added a little there, often portraying the person in a light that made a middle-aged husband look like a college bachelor.

When I got a glimpse of the man I knew to be Frisby, I was surprised. He looked about the same as his photo. A little less hair, and a skosh more over the belt, but it basically was the same man.

I also got a look at his car when he arrived. He left it on a private lot about a block and a half from his offices. There didn't seem to be any sort of attendant, so I took a short look. I'd noticed that many lifelong city residents didn't lock their cars. Better to leave nothing in them worth stealing than to endure the cost of a replacement window.

Frisby was such a city-wise fellow.

What did I see in his vehicle? A school sticker, some children's toys in the back that seemed to be for a girl of six or eight years, and ... bingo. The registration information said this vehicle was his own, not a company car. I took a quick photo of the item. I now had the man's home address and where his kid went to school. I later found the rest of what I needed freely available on the Internet.

This is the point in the tale where I remind you of something very important. Nay, something crucial. Something I told you at the outset: I'm not a very nice person. Don't ever make the mistake of thinking that I am.

I met Miles Frisby at his home in Queens several hours later, after driving his nine-year-old daughter home from school. Things like that are incredibly easy for me to do, easy for anyone really, anyone who isn't burdened by a conscience, the type for whom lies come easy. I was a pretty, well-dressed, and articulate woman in her middle twenties, and no one questioned my right to pick up a child at school. I told a series of lies to the daughter to get her into my borrowed car. I didn't even have to lie to any adults. I just smiled and was my usual confident self.

I didn't threaten the kid, didn't even touch her. In fact, we swung by for ice cream on the way home. By that time, it was past sunset, and young Sara Frisby's parents had just noticed that she was missing. I walked in the front door of the family home a few minutes after Mrs. Frisby drove away in a rush, no doubt headed for the school.

For just a moment after Sara and I entered, a great look of relief flashed across the face of Miles Frisby. Then he looked at me, and then he looked again. Then he asked his daughter to go upstairs and play, and Miles and I retired to the backyard to talk.

On the way, he tried to grab for a gun. I let him off easy, with a sharp slap to the head and a twisted arm. No use scuffing him up so much that people later might ask questions about his injuries.

Our conversation was short and to the point. He worked for me now. If the man did precisely what I told him to do, he'd get to dance at his daughter's wedding. Fuck with me even a little, diverge from my instructions on even a tiny detail, and he would be weeping at her funeral.

I fully meant every word of it.

Afterward, I asked him some questions. His replies confirmed some of what I knew, and informed me of some things I did not. It was clear he knew who and what I was, but before I left I needed to remind him anyway.

"And Miles, don't be foolish and think you can run or hide. I live forever, and I'll catch up to your little darling sooner or later." I got the man's private number and, as a sweetener, tossed him a thick wad of bills. As I left, I said, "Be where I can find you."